The programme began with a stylish account of Haydn's Quartet Op
20/4, full of life and energy. The first movement was slightly under tempo,
yet the sonority was attractively warm and rich with lots of subtle dovetailing
between the leader Matthew Denton and second violin Katalin Varnagy. By
the second movement they had gained impetus, each variation infused with
poise and delicacy, especially the leader's virtuoso figuration and
Emma Denton's eloquent cello theme. The ensemble was also superbly
coordinated in the Minuet and Trio and bristling finale, with its driving
sequences and rich chains of suspensions.

As Graham Whettam explains in his introduction, the musical material
of the 4th quartet derives from a single motivic cell stated by the cello
at the outset, A, C, G, B, which 'by coincidence' happens to outline
the initials of the work's commissioners. Its permutations and contrapuntal
transformations are myriad, in the first movement defiant, introduced by
cello, in the Scherzo with balletic textures and later inverted,
and expressively transformed into a lyrical theme in Passacaglia &
Fuga Danzante, with rich lines for all four players especially Graham
Broadbent's resonant viola. After a spiky fugue the Passacaglia theme
is also inverted. The finale is a fizzing, syncopated Rondo, with exciting
textures. The work thus moves from the fierce ira passionata (passionate
anger) of the Preludio (Lento), through a more dancing Scherzo
and Passacagalia to the Rondo's transformation, in its magical
coda, to an elusive questioning conclusion. With its echoes of Shostakovich,
Bartók and Britten in the harmonic, rhythmic and tonal idiom, the
Carducci conveyed the work's emotional landscape with involvement and
conviction. (For a detailed article by the present author about Graham Whettam's
music for strings, see Tempo 216, April 2001.)